


Scarabs Fill My Pillow

by kaboomslang



Series: Somnambulovin' [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Baze has so many feelings, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Consensual Somnophilia, Insecure Baze, Insomnia, M/M, PWP, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Slice of Life, Somnophilia, in the sense that there is porn and the stuff without porn has no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:32:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9622436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaboomslang/pseuds/kaboomslang
Summary: Baze has insomnia, has dreams, has nightmares. He also has Chirrut, in all the ways Chirrut will let him. Set in pre-Empire Jedha.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [SOBS] THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BASIC PWP. LOOK AT IT, IT'S GOT ANXIETY
> 
> the working title for this was "wake me up (before you come-come)" which is far funnier and far less appropriate for how it turned out. croptop chirrut is a direct response to GreyMichaela's fic [Morning People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9552953), which was a response to me posting gifs of donnie yen in a croptop. go read her fic

The muscles in Baze’s shoulders cramped tight like twisting ropes no matter how he stretched them out, or punched his pillow into a reasonably more comfortable shape. He sighed and tried rolling onto his front, which only made it worse. Grit scratched at his eyes, and his throat was sour and tacky with thirst but he didn’t dare try shuffling down to the kitchens again, and risk waking the entire room of boys. No matter how much he tried to tidy, for Chirrut’s sake, he always seemed to be the one tripping over things in the dark. He wasn’t in a hurry to be pelted with sandals and books and curses again any time soon.

Now his neck ached. He was so tired he felt like crying.

Chirrut always said it was because he walked around hunched in on himself, while he poked and prodded at Baze’s tense back, his drilled-in forehead.

“How would you know?” Baze snapped. Lack of sleep turned the morning sun to white hot needles in his skull, as if his brain were a slimy, nocturnal cave creature, hissing at the light.

Chirrut blew a raspberry, and stretched his horrible, perfectly refreshed arms above his head with a grunt. Baze turned hurriedly away, not that Chirrut would see him looking. All of the younger acolytes had basic form training an hour after dawn, and the wide upper courtyard was steadily filling with lapping waves of conversation under NaJedha’s watchful gaze. “Nobody has talked to us this morning, that’s how.”

“What?”

“They’re all scared, because you look like a gargoyle in the mornings when you don’t get any sleep,” Chirrut chirped. He was bending over to touch his toes, his short tunic riding up the backs of his skinny thighs. He’d nearly put it on backwards again that morning until Baze intervened. “So I’m told.”

On more than one occasion Baze had considered how ridiculous they must look, one flickering starshine of a boy strutting around like a cockerel, and his hulking, surly shadow. Painful guilt bit into his soft, unguarded places as he wondered not for the first time whether or not he was holding Chirrut back from the glory he deserved. As much glory as one could expect anyway, being a Guardian and servant of the Force. Perhaps the Force was withholding sleep from him as punishment for thinking blasphemous thoughts.

Baze had just pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Maybe if he pushed them far enough back into his head he’d get some rest. Or die. Either would be preferable.

Sighing again, he rolled over to face the window. Their dormitory looked to the north, at the rear of the Temple, their view a straight plunge over the city’s abrupt edge. Sometimes he tried to picture himself flying through that window and into the yawning night, a huge bird with wings weighed down by oily sleep, but it never worked. Nothing ever worked when it was this bad, and as an added insult, he had no idea what caused it.

Well.

He’d been having nightmares about that _place_ again. Staying awake to avoid the dream had been a good idea to begin with, but he soon realised it haunted him at night regardless of his state of consciousness. Scalding seas and burning white sand, bone rattling explosions ripping the sky into fiery pieces while ships darted overhead like livid hornets. The worst thing, though, was the terror. Arcane dream knowledge that something world-ending was coming, and he could do nothing to stop it but watch and scream with loss. Chirrut was in the dream somewhere, but it always ended before he made an appearance. Baze never told him about it.

It was no use thinking about Chirrut when he was trying to sleep, his brain would always whir into overdrive trying to puzzle the other boy out.

A yawn crept up on him, so wide and long that his jaw cracked, and he missed the muffled grunt from the bedroll at his back. _One last try,_ he thought, and closed his eyes in heavy, exhausted desperation. _One last try before I get up. Can’t be too long until dawn._ He had lain awake for hours. There was one other thing he could attempt, to speed the process along. He had abstained until now for fear of being discovered and ridiculed in the morning, but he was in dire straits.

Heaving his leaden arm further under the blanket, he drew his thumb into his mouth.

Slowly, so slowly, his thoughts quieted and pooled in the back of his mind like the saliva pooling around his knuckle. Pressed hard into the soft sandstone under his pillow, his pummeled skull finally felt heavy enough to sink into sleep, instead of rigid on his stiff shoulders. If it weren’t for his inner focus turned to his gentling heartbeat, he would have heard the strained whimpers from the adjacent cot.

So close, the world was slipping away.

So close, until a trembling hand patted its way over his shoulder to find his face.

“Baze?”

 _Ignore him, ignore him_ _—_

 _“Baze_ , _”_ the voice insisted, sounding panicked. Then with a tinge of amusement, “Are you sucking your thumb?”

That was it. Sitting up so fast his head spun while he clutched at his hair, a frustrated growl ripped from his throat as he felt, with horror, his eyes filling with tears.

“What? For kriff’s sake, Chirrut, _what?”_

“I—I think something’s wrong,” Chirrut whispered, and Baze finally looked at him. Starlight cast most of his skinny frame in shadow, but Baze could clearly see the stricken look in Chirrut’s cloudy eyes. He was holding himself awkwardly too, arms stiff on either side of his body with his bare chest curled protectively over his lap, like one of the beggars on the Temple steps, ashamed of his own need for help.

“What d’you mean? Do you hear something?” Baze scrubbed at his eyes and listened, but all he could hear were the soft snores of their classmates, and the north wind waterfalling up the mesa to breathe on their windchimes.

“No, something wrong with _me,_ it’s—I was asleep and I woke up and something,” Chirrut gulped, “happened.”

Baze waited and watched Chirrut stare imploringly in his general direction, willing him to understand. When it was clear nothing else was forthcoming, Baze shuffled forward and reached out to reassure the younger boy, when the unprecedented happened. Chirrut tensed and leaned away from his touch, his body heat. Baze felt sick, suddenly, because something had obviously shaken Chirrut badly.

“Chirrut, tell me what’s wrong.”

He was slow and faltering about it, but Chirrut lifted the blanket away from his legs as if it were infested with desert lice and, to Baze’s utter calamity, started to ease down the soft leggings from his narrow hips.

“What—?! Chirrut, hold on,” he began, thankful beyond reason that it was dark enough to hide his face, flooded with heat. Then he remembered that it didn’t make a difference to Chirrut, who could probably feel the radiation like a solar lamp, and he nearly whimpered from embarrassment. He never used to feel this way, he had bathed with the other acolytes for years, boys and girls and non-humans alike. Only recently, since the months following his fourteenth birthday had his eyes stuttered over the leanness of Chirrut’s legs, the pretty bow of his smile. The way he bit his lip and his eyes turned to happy crescents when Baze laughed at his jokes. It was terrifying, and for a moment Baze wondered if he really was asleep and his old nightmare had been replaced with a new one.

“Hold on,” he repeated. “Chirrut, what’s going on?” Foggy regret informed him he was probably scaring Chirrut even more, but self preservation was deathly important, at that point.

“I don’t _know,”_ said Chirrut. “I was d-dreaming, and I woke up and I think I’m bleeding? From—from where I pee.”

Oh no.

Oh, not this. Not with Chirrut.

“Um.”

“Would you—Baze, I can’t _see it,_ will you please tell me if it’s okay?”

Baze’s head was pounding a thousand times harder than it had been when he was trying to sleep, his heart forcing blood to his brain and, horrifyingly, his crotch. The pallet under his thin mattress was creaking from the force of his trembles. This had to be a nightmare.

Jedha’s nightly rotation in NaJedha’s orbit brought them around to face the vast sweep of coloured rings, sun reflected in purples and deep blues and mossy greens. Kaleidoscope patterns curved down Chirrut’s high cheekbones and over his flat stomach. Baze’s eyes followed the space-light down to the shadows in Chirrut’s lap, and noted with mounting panic the streaks of glistening white there, caught in the downy hairs below Chirrut’s navel.

“Chirrut,” he choked. “Has anyone ever… explained… sex? To you, I mean.” Oh Force above.

“What are you talking about!” hissed Chirrut, clearly anxious not to wake anyone else up. In a twisted, possessive sort of way, Baze was almost proud that Chirrut had asked him for help, and not headed straight to the Temple healers.

He took a deep breath, and floundered his way through the dark with words. “You know your thing is for sex, right? I mean, it doesn’t have to be, not if you don’t want, but…” He trailed off. Chirrut’s forehead was creased with confusion. Baze’s own first experience with this had been little over a year ago, younger than Chirrut was now, but Baze had had the advantage of growing up amongst ordinary people, less concerned with lofty spirituality than with the earthly realities of harsh Jedhan life. Which involved brothels, and large families, and community midwives, and a constant gaggle of older children to delight in imparting often inaccurate sexual know-how. Baze had touched himself before his first embarrassing dream, and quickly learned how to be silent in working his hand rough between his legs while Chirrut slept a foot from him.

Chirrut had grown up around monks, many of whom were celibate, and if there was one thing the Whills had successfully managed to drum into him, it was stubbornly avoiding confrontation with conflicts of interest.

Now he was unprepared, and the Force couldn’t help him with this. Baze steeled himself, armed with his important extra year of experience, and tried again.

“Your _penis_ ,” he said, feeling ridiculous talking about this amid piles of blankets, like they were enjoying a cosy get-together. “Isn’t just for peeing. When you’re older, or, I guess when you’re our age it can get—hard. For sex.”

Chirrut’s lip curled back, like his face didn’t know what his brain was thinking. “I’m not having sex. I was _asleep.”_ One of his hands was gripping at his pillow so hard his knuckles looked fit to burst from his skin, the other was hovering unsure over his groin.

Baze felt lightheaded from lack of sleep, and Chirrut.

“I know, I know, but sometimes it can get that way when you dream about… stuff. Sex stuff.” At this Chirrut startled, his hand skittering into the shadows of his lap. He stared wide eyed at Baze before ducking his head, flushed in sapphire-gold stardust, high on his cheeks. Baze could think of a thousand things he would rather be doing than this, but odds had never been on his side when it came to his best friend. Chirrut won him over every time. Best to get it all over with in one mind-meltingly humiliating attempt. “Or it just happens in the morning sometimes, I’m not sure why. It’s, um. It’s okay, though. It happens to everyone with a… you know.”

“A penis,” Chirrut whispered. “So the sticky stuff is—it’s for sex, too?”

Baze mumbled in assent. “Yeah. It comes out if you t-touch, if you touch it. Enough.” He covered his burning face and yelled silently into his palms.

“Okay,” said Chirrut. Then with a firmer nod, “Okay. So. I’m going to the freshers. And I need my other pants, can you—?”

“Yeah, yes, absolutely,” Baze said, relief at the finished conversation almost tripping him in his haste to stand, pressing his wrist to the half-awake bulge in his own briefs, willing it away. Chirrut’s clothes were folded sloppily at the foot of his bed and Baze grabbed the first pair of leggings he saw, pressing them into Chirrut’s hands without looking down.

“This is so stupid,” whispered Chirrut. “If this happens a lot I’m going to run out of trousers. I might as well sleep naked.” With that, he stooped to grope for his staff and set off without a backwards glance. It would have been funny, his waddling gait and the way he was holding the front of his stained pants away from himself, if Baze weren’t nearly having a heart attack.

Once Chirrut was out of sight, Baze stumbled back and collided with the warm, sandy stone. He’d been _this_ close to finally getting some sleep, and now his world felt like it was spinning on a whole new axis. It hadn’t been easy, but he had coped with the swelling things he felt for Chirrut by mere virtue of the fact that he was younger, and looked it, if not by much. Now Chirrut was getting hard, like Baze did. Coming onto his belly, like Baze did. Dreaming like Baze did, and the sudden headrush catapulted the room around him, made him clutch at the rough-hewn viewport for dear life.

_What did Chirrut dream about?_

Baze knew very well what bright eyed, laughing visions swam slick through his dreaming mind, which ones woke him from his meagre hours’ sleep gasping with his hand already down the front of his loose shorts. He didn’t dare hope they were the same ones swimming after Chirrut.

Dawn’s feathery light was a creeping tide against the night sky, a bruised grey purple that meant the day would be overcast and mild. Seeing those first rays before he’d gotten any shut-eye always depressed him, the sun rising further into the sky like a towering and disappointed parent. _Failed again, Baze._

He slumped down against the wall and crawled back to his cot. Hugging his knees to his chest he heard the _tap, tap, tap_ of Chirrut’s staff as he made his way back up the ancient spiralling stairs. He would close his eyes, Baze thought, and they would pretend this never happened in the morning. Yeah, as if. As ever, Chirrut would take one look at Baze’s plans before tossing them happily over his shoulder and striding off in his own direction, confident that Baze would follow. It was alright. Chirrut never made him feel stupid, or useless. Half of his attempts at countering Chirrut’s nonsense were purely reflex by now, their arguing a comfortable habit.

He slitted his eyes open as Chirrut settled back down beside him in fresh leggings, his chest and stomach pink from scrubbing. Baze’s mouth started to water, so he stuck his thumb back between his teeth, past caring. Chirrut already knew.

A few minutes passed before Chirrut, predictably, piped up again.

“Sorry I woke you for all that. I guess it wasn’t really a big deal.” He chuckled under his breath, twisting his fingers and staring resolutely at the ceiling.

Baze squeezed his eyes shut to block out the spreading tendrils of light on the vaulted roof and turned his back to Chirrut. “S’okay. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

“You were so. You were sucking your thumb,” said Chirrut, sounding irritatingly chipper for someone who had not so long ago believed he was bleeding from his dick.

“Shut up,” muttered Baze, and of course the night would come to cradle him too late, when they barely had an hour left before first bells. “It helps.”

The last thing he heard before slipping into a fitful dream of burning palm trees and star-dappled ribs was Chirrut saying hushed, “Thank you, Baze.”

 

~

 

Not too many years later, when the morning came and the Temple awoke like an old starship engine being coaxed back to life, Baze lay looking at the pearly blue dawn through their south facing window. Peaked shadows cast by the highest spires banded their room in light and shade, the first call to prayer wafting around minarets and terraces of red stone until the song overlapped itself.

They were late.

Or rather, Chirrut was late. The youngest acolytes certainly weren’t going to teach themselves, but since their instructor was plastered almost naked to Baze’s side and drooling on his chest, they would have to wait a while. Thankfully the shipment of kyber-enhanced weapons and gadgets that had preoccupied Baze’s recent time had shipped to an allied sector the previous day, and he was a rare free agent for the time being until their next assignment together.

It would have been nice to lie there a while longer, he thought ruefully, since he had barely caught two hours of unbroken sleep during the night. Previous experience dictated that if Chirrut was late, it meant Baze was late too. Chirrut dragged him everywhere he went, insisting Baze help him with giving lessons, or tending the gardens, or archiving.

“Just because you’re overqualified,” he’d said, “doesn’t mean you can’t be my assistant.” His stern look collapsed into guffaws when Baze had picked up his hand to let him feel Baze’s own, giving a rude gesture.

Baze made to sit up without dislodging Chirrut too suddenly, swinging his feet to the floor. Silently he thanked Chirrut for the rug he had pilfered from somewhere, since even the Jedhan summer sun couldn’t heat their stone floors in the mornings. He twisted to look down at the man, eyes still closed and frowning while he licked at the dried spit caught in the corners of his mouth. Baze loved him impossibly.

“Wh’zzat,” Chirrut mumbled. “C’mere.”

“You’re already late, idiot.” Baze palmed over Chirrut’s smooth scalp, just shaved the day before and at odds with his dark, expressive eyebrows. He was always gorgeous, but there was a vulnerability in the way he draped his loose limbs all over Baze in the night that wrung his heart of every last drop of love.

Chirrut shifted and grumbled, “‘M the teacher, doesn’t matter. Come _here._ ”

With an _oof,_ Baze bounced back onto the mattress with Chirrut’s solid chest pinning him down. Nose to nose, he could see the sleep-grit in Chirrut’s eyes, still closed, and reached to wipe them gently away. What a treat it must be to sleep so long and so deeply that he still slept when he woke up. Chirrut had always been good at misdirection.

“Hi,” smiled Chirrut.

“Your breath stinks.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” Chirrut said with a grin, and kissed him plush on the mouth.

His morning hardness was pressing into Baze’s hip where Chirrut was straddling his leg, so Baze jostled him with his knee while they lipped at each other, languid. He didn’t want any more of Chirrut’s bodily fluids on his sleep pants than there already were, not before breakfast. Between them they barely wore one indecent outfit to bed. Baze preferred to sleep shirtless and Chirrut still clung to his flimsy white tunic with the missing sleeves, long since hemmed above his midriff and practically transparent with age. They both knew he only wore it because Baze loved how it looked when his big hands pushed underneath, the cotton stark against Chirrut’s golden skin. Like unwrapping a gift. Like he was getting away with something. Trespassing.

With a small screech of static, the prayer call came to a close and the tannoys were shut off. Someone would be stepping up to the gong in a moment, high in its chamber above them all like a great reflective eye, watching and waiting to shout resonant down from on high. Baze was tenting the front of his pants further by the second, and Chirrut had already broken the kiss to moan softly into his neck, his hands working the tired knots from Baze’s shoulders. It was always easier to sleep after sex, which is why they had to stop.

“Chirrut, you’re really going to be late,” he said, the words catching in his dry throat and his traitorous hands spreading down to grip at warm, shifting hips. Chirrut only hummed and slapped a hand over Baze’s mouth.

Cheerful against his sluggish pulse, Chirrut said, “If you get out of this bed I’m divorcing you,” and in a polarising moment for Baze, went back to sucking a mark high under his jaw. On the one hand Chirrut was marking him, which never failed to make his blood spark with near dangerous lust. On the other hand, _Chirrut was marking him._

“Ugh! Stop, Chirrut stop, people will _see,_ get off.” He was spinning, the night’s long unearthly hours catching up with the daytime whirlwind that was dealing with Chirrut’s antics. His head was throbbing, his _cock_ was throbbing, the sound of the great gong was pounding through him like rapids on soft river stones. He pushed weakly at Chirrut’s head when he surfaced for air, breathing hard.

“Oh no, people will see! That’s the point, my love,” he laughed. “It’s not as if there’s anyone here that doesn’t know exactly what I do to you. I’ve been told I’m so loud I should apply to be the gong.”

“Still,” Baze grumbled, “I’d rather you did it when we didn’t have someplace to be. Y’know, where everyone will know exactly why we’re so late.”

Planting both his elbows on Baze’s chest and resting his chin in his hands, Chirrut smiled his beatific smile at him, the one that got him out of everything, and into Baze. “I like people knowing you belong to me. You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

He sighed. “No. It’s okay, it’ll pass.”

Chirrut’s smile slipped, and Baze hated to be the one to ever put that sad expression on his face. They rested together for a few moments, arousal forgotten as the city’s lamentations drifted high like the morning dew evaporating. Endless practice in the weak summer sun had spattered freckles across Chirrut’s nose, and now the crystals hanging in their window glanced rainbows round their cramped space, across unseeing eyes. Baze trailed the backs of his knuckles down the side of Chirrut’s neck. He’d never wanted to confess the dreams, but it had felt unfair to keep it from Chirrut when he was worrying himself ragged over Baze’s night terrors.

Chirrut opened his mouth to say something, but he jumped when they were interrupted by a rapid hammering on the wall by their curtain door.

_“Chirrut!”_

Flopping his arms over his head, Baze heaved a rasping yawn. “She sounds really mad at you.”

Clutching Baze around the waist a little tighter, Chirrut burrowed down under the covers, shaking with laughter.

“If you two are going at it, I don’t want to know. I mean, I’d know already, obviously, but the walls aren’t shaking so I’m pretty sure you’re not. Chirrut, get the fuck out here or I’m coming in! Baze, you’d better be dressed this time!”

Muffled by blankets and because he was speaking into Baze’s stomach, Chirrut shouted back, “Why doesn’t it matter if I’m not dressed?”

Uqin snorted from behind the curtain, the knives at her belt clinking. “Because Baze has modesty and I respect that. You don’t care if anyone sees you naked.” Chirrut clambered back up to collapse on Baze’s chest again, and whisper gravely into the corner of his mouth.

“Darling, I think she might be right. You’re not mad?”

“Of course she’s right, you’re shameless,” Baze said, fighting back a grin.

“What have I got to be ashamed of?” Chirrut replied, sitting up to run his hands beneath his obscene shirt and slowly down his lean chest, the cut of his defined abdomen, towards his softening length. Baze pushed him over.

 _“Obviously_ nothing, it seems. Stop fishing for compliments.” Baze extracted himself from Chirrut’s squirming and hauled out of bed, shucking his soft trousers to step into his work robes. If there was any hard labour to be done he’d gladly volunteer. Maybe if his body was run to the ground his mind would crash there with it, relent to let him sleep that night.

Chirrut wasn’t done being ridiculous. “You’re right, why would I fish for compliments when you throw them at me regardless. ‘Chirrut, you’re a fool, Chirrut, the children are less embarrassing than you, Chirrut, you’ve spilled soup on yourself again’.” He propped himself on one elbow and let his bare legs fall open, knowing Baze would stop to stare. “I feel so loved.”

Two of Uqin’s striped arms flailed around the curtain, waving their fists in Chirrut’s direction. Baze ducked as he tightened his sash, to avoid being punched in his already tender head. “Stop being disgusting together and hurry the fuck up! Naish says the acolytes have started a theological debating game where the loser has to fight ten people at once!”

“I’ve taught them well,” sighed Chirrut.

 

~

 

To the rear of the Temple, above the junior dormitories there was the upper courtyard, airy and open on three sides, ringed by vast carved columns. It had always felt to Baze like being, not in a cage, but in the waiting grip of a red-toothed beast, ready to bite down on those unable to keep up with the punishing zama-shiwo training. Beyond the pillars was only air and space and the blurred horizon, thorny creeping cliff vines the only things brave enough to descend those thousands of feet to the desert below.

 _No one has ever fallen,_ said the Grandmasters. _The Force would not allow it._

Form training always took place facing away from Jedha’s distant rockfields, inwards to the Temple. _Look first inwards for the Force_ , they were taught, _and when you find it you will see its hand in all else._

“There’s nothing I can do, not even in the gardens?”

Zariya shrugged. “Sorry Baze, for once we’re not actually short of hands, and the abbots have already yelled at me for letting too many people in to trample their vegetables.”

Scrubbing a frustrated hand through his hair, Baze muttered, “Okay. I guess I’ll… I’ll go and see Chirrut.” He knew he was predictable, and transparent, but he really couldn’t be blamed. Zariya smirked at him anyway.

“Heard he was super late to the juniors this morning.”

Baze flushed, and thought of Chirrut biting promises and possession into his throat. He cuffed the fongoid hard on the shoulder. “Shut up.”

Dozens of people shouted and waved to him as he plodded his way up through the rice terraces, the forges, past the workshops towards the upper courtyard. He only nodded and kept his eyes on the ground, uncomfortable with attention from anyone but Chirrut. The only person he’d ever wanted attention from was Chirrut. It was embarrassing sometimes, the way people treated the pair of them like minor celebrities. Particularly when they had been given their own room, though Baze suspected that had been a collaborative effort on the part of their bunkmates, sick of hearing Chirrut’s _noises_ every night. They were the youngest acolytes to achieve Guardianship, and they did it on the same day. Chirrut had made sure of it. One of the few couples in the Temple’s fold, and probably the only ones to both be serving the Whills at the same time, brought up together. It was unheard of. Combined with Chirrut’s blindness and the way it held him back in almost no capacity whatsoever, it was little wonder they each had an ever shifting crowd of wide-eyed little followers trailing them around.

Through the high and shadowy archway Baze could see the courtyard beyond, bathed in midday sunshine. At least a hundred children were shouting in formal unison, arms raised in a block, faced determinedly towards the marble dais Baze knew so well. He tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, ducking between the billowing yellow flags that draped the platform, golden sails ready to whisk them all into the desert. The weapons always needed cleaning and tending to; none of these kids came to the Whills with a lick of common sense or consideration, Baze included.

As always, Chirrut caught hold of Baze’s plans, and threw them to the wind.

“Hold!” roared Chirrut, and Baze froze from years of ingrained reflex. Then he looked to see that the breeze had caught one of the flags, exposing him sneaking around like a thief. Chirrut was standing stripped to the waist, hands on his sweaty hips glinting in the sun and beaming slightly to Baze’s left.

With the barest satisfaction leaching his embarrassed flush, Baze noticed that Chirrut had stopped the class in what looked like an extremely uncomfortable form, forbidden to move until Chirrut resumed. Many of them in the front rows were glaring his way, and Baze bit down a grin.

“Master Malbus! Here to take over? Let a blind man get some rest?” A few students tittered and wobbled on their single leg, the wind swaying the entire class like a bed of reeds.

Baze shuffled closer to Chirrut, muttering under his breath, “Would you stop? There’s nothing else to do, and Force knows your droning always tires me out.” He did not say, _I came because I love to watch you twisting through the air like brutal art, I’d watch you all the time if I could, and you’re the only thing that gives me peace._ Instead he begged him, “Please Chirrut, I need to sleep. I’ll sleep in the back, you can ignore me.”

Chirrut softened, and groped around to find Baze’s waist, his sash, hooking a finger in. “That’s impossible, my love. Get some rest. Try not to be so handsome, you’ll distract my pupils.”

Baze glanced over Chirrut’s shoulder at the class, some gawping, some giggling behind their hands, a handful shooting daggers at him with undisguised jealousy. He snorted, pressed his fingers to the ridges of Chirrut’s abs. “I don’t think it’s me you have to worry about distracting anybody.”

Chirrut rolled his eyes and pecked him lightning quick on the cheek, before whirling back to the class and clapping his hands. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re all back on two feet! Master Malbus told me! Once more!”

A hundred whining protests followed Baze to the weapons racks, overhung with waxy trees and climbing flowers. He listed to the side and slid down the rough wall to huddle in the shade, the exhaustion of his two consecutive waking days slamming into him like an avalanche. It made him cold, his body’s energy dried of its last drop with nothing left to give. The familiar building spike of pain was lancing between his eyes and he squeezed them tighter shut, willing the weary, desperate tears not to fall.

For the next few hours he existed on two planes, one aware of the world through his half shut eyes, waves of saffron-robed children moving in time to a comforting voice. The other plane was a comatose place, a limbo place, where his body turned to solid stone and he could no more raise his head from his chest than spread wings and fly away. He drifted between the two, jolting to awareness with a panicked pitching forward, then sinking back into the immovable depths, to be repeated. It wasn’t restful. It was not sleep.

Eventually he surfaced, the low evening sun having split his shaded spot open like a gold-toothed smile. Chirrut was crouched in front of him, haloed in the light with a hand on Baze’s cheek, the other wiping the sweat from his own forehead with his shirt. The courtyard was empty but for the two of them.

“Did you sleep at all? Would you like to get supper?”

Baze’s whole body shuddered from the force of his yawn, and he lied, “Yeah, got a bit. I’m not really hungry though. I’ll see you back up there?”

Chirrut’s smile was full of cheeky affection when he leaned in for a lingering kiss. “Not if I see you first, big boy,” and he danced away laughing, out of reach from Baze’s swiping hands.

 

~

 

It was a miracle, but not a big enough one.

He had tried, really _tried,_ and thrown himself into meditation when he staggered his way back up to their secluded room. Not that he ever missed his daily communion with the Force, but lately it had been half hearted, too distracted by his hectic schedule, his insomnia, the terrible dream back with a vengeance. Nothing ever came from inaction, though, so he made the gargantuan effort and cleared his mind, slipped into the place inside himself. A dark, shimmering pool of still water, indigo and infrared and a circle above him, beaming down one single shaft of blazing light to take him away from the world. He thought he felt the Force there, but then, maybe it was the very fact he considered it, that showed the Force’s footprints round the shore of that pool. He looked for the Force, and found this neverplace in the looking, and the Force provided him with sleep. Real, deep, unbroken, peaceful sleep.

For an hour or so.

He awoke to the quiet sounds of Chirrut undressing, the glowing kyber embedded in the walls the only light left. For the first time in days he didn’t feel like screaming upon opening his eyes. A soothing cloth of dreamless dark had wiped the tension from his forehead. He felt good. Unfolding himself from his position on the floor, he stretched until his back cracked, and took in Chirrut, gilded in the crystals’ glow and wearing nothing but his infuriating cropped shirt. Baze felt even better.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” said Chirrut, dropping his badly folded clothes at the foot of their bunk. “I know how bad it’s been the past few weeks. If there’s anything I can do, just tell me.”

Baze huffed a laugh. “I’m a lot better now, actually.”

“Really? Zariya said you looked like shit.”

Baze scowled. “Zariya can get lost. He’s the one who wouldn’t let me work in the gardens this afternoon.”

Chirrut was biting his lip, his eyes curved into glinting blue crescents. “Don’t sulk, dearest, I defended you. I told him where to go.”

“Back to his piles of bantha turds?” said Baze, and smiled proudly when Chirrut burst out laughing.

“Something like that. You _are_ feeling better! Though I hope you don’t look like shit, it reflects badly on me as a husband.” His eyebrows raised, pleased to find Baze’s torso bare when he reached out for him. He thumbed softly at the dark bruises Baze knew he carried under his eyes like a curse. He closed them when Chirrut leaned up to kiss the circles, one after the other.

“Hi,” he whispered into Baze’s open mouth.

“Hi yourself,” said Baze, and swept his tongue over the smiling seam of Chirrut’s lips. They swayed there in the low light, the kiss heating into something that stoked embers at the base of Baze’s spine.

Then Chirrut sighed, letting go of Baze’s face to climb into bed. “What a shame I’m the one exhausted now. I wanted to continue what we started this morning.”

“What _you_ started, you mean,” said Baze, climbing in after him and trying to hide his disappointment. The things that damn shirt did to him, what Chirrut’s whole existence did to him, and now he was more naturally alert than he had been in days. He tugged at Chirrut, shifting his legs sideways over Baze’s lap so he could cradle him to his chest.

“Don’t be petty. I mean, feel free to go on without me, but I’m out on this one. This year’s acolytes are a handful,” he said, yawning so wide Baze could count his perfect teeth. Baze was still sitting frozen against the wall, hand cupping the back of Chirrut’s head and gazing down at him. The solar panels on their outer walls had been collecting all day, and now they warmed the room, lulling Chirrut back into his easy sleep.

“Do you mean that?”

“Mean what?”

“‘Go on without me’, what do you mean?” He ran his hand absently up Chirrut’s bare thigh, tanned nearly as dark as the rest of him from the scandalous, minimalistic way he dressed to practice. Scratching gently at the trail of hair on his stomach always sent Chirrut flushed and squirming, and tonight was no exception. He grinned and batted Baze’s hand away.

“I mean… I suppose I meant you’ve got your hand, right?” he laughed sleepily. “Why, what did you think I meant?”

“Oh, I—I thought maybe I could,” he stopped, cringing at himself. Nights and more nights he had lain awake with nothing else to do but commit the sight of Chirrut to memory, like he’d been doing most of his life. Sometimes his regular nightmare was replaced by one where Baze went blind himself, and never saw Chirrut again. He didn’t know how Chirrut could bear it.

During those nights he had watched Chirrut dream, his eyes moving quick under his lids, just as blind in sleep as in wakefulness. The smiling set of his mouth relaxed in sleep too. There was nothing insincere in Chirrut’s genial nature, but in sleep, alone with Baze he was calm, the bleeding edges of his sharp wit and sharper mind left to heal overnight.

So many glacial nights had Baze watched him, wanting so badly to take refuge between Chirrut’s thighs, worship the peaceful altar of his body and pray for sleep. For all his intimidating height and brooding face, Baze felt as uncertain about asking for what he wanted as he had all those years ago, when Chirrut had learned to stroke himself to completion mere inches from Baze, who ached for him. In the end Chirrut had been the one to ask, to plead, and had been ever since. Baze had never learned how, always delighted with anything Chirrut dreamed up.

“Baze?”

He jumped a fraction, tugged back on deck from the churning currents of his thoughts. Chirrut was still a heavy weight in his lap, frowning up at him. Baze cleared his throat.

“I was thinking of something. About you. I mean, I’m awake now, but you’re tired and I don’t want to—to disturb you.”

Chirrut quirked a puzzled smile at him, uncommon patience tender on his face. “You can ask me, love, it’s alright.”

“I know. I know it is,” said Baze. He took a steadying breath and wondered why this was so difficult. In many ways he was still stunned that brilliant, quicksilver Chirrut had chosen, of all the paths his talents could have taken, to bind his life to someone like him. When people called out to them in the halls and gardens, whispered about them, watched them in their rare instances of public affection, he felt jittery and exposed. He wasn’t embarrassed to be with Chirrut, only that people would still see the sunbeam boy and the gargoyle. He despised pity. But still it gnawed at him, and he didn’t want to ask for more from Chirrut than he was already given (and Force, he had been given more than in his wildest dreams), for fear that one day he’d take too much.

Pulling Chirrut closer into him, he relished the easy way he constantly touched, mapping out Baze’s position and mood. He was being stupid, Chirrut would never make him feel small, or unloved. His heart wouldn’t allow it. Nuzzling his nose into Chirrut’s scalp he finally spoke, “I wondered if you would let me touch you, while you’re asleep.”

Chirrut’s inquiring hum against his chest made him smile. “You always touch me in my sleep. What are we doing right now?” Baze rolled his eyes, and hugged a tight squeak from his husband.

“You know what I mean. Can I—would you like it if I went on without you. Um, awake?” He held his breath.

“That’s all?”

His breath rushed from him in a flood. “Yes. I mean, only if it’s alright. I think it would help me sleep.”

Chirrut was quiet for an uncharacteristic length of time, and then to Baze’s alarm, started shaking. “Chirrut?” Baze said, running what he hoped was a soothing hand down his bare sides. Then he heard it. The asshole was _giggling._

“Don’t laugh at me!” He would have felt hurt, betrayed even, if he wasn’t used to Chirrut’s sometimes bizarre reactions to things. He was just glad of being allowed to stay, not kicked out onto the floor already. Strong tremors were jostling Chirrut in his lap and doing nothing to discourage his lazily interested erection, but a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Chirrut snorted into his hip and patted Baze’s chest affectionately, his face red from his outburst. “I wasn’t laughing at _you,_ you great lump, I was just—just remembering,” and he set himself off again, another peal of bright mirth lighting the room stronger than any kyber. Baze wanted to kiss him senseless.

Eventually he settled down, though his mouth still wobbled trying to keep his snorts to a minimum. “You have my permission to do whatever you want with me. I was just remembering what used to help you sleep when we were young.” Here he bit his lip on a bubbling smile at Baze’s confused silence.

“What?”

Chirrut beckoned him down so as to whisper in his ear, “It’s bigger than your thumb, but if that’s what does it for you, have at it. Go wild.”

Baze groaned even as he felt his cheeks burn, and shoved lightly at Chirrut’s ridiculous, beautiful face. “You’re the worst. I can’t believe you remember that, _I_ didn’t even remember that.”

“How could I forget! You were adorable. Baze Malbus, the terror of the temple, sucking his thumb. That first time I felt you doing it, remember? I wondered if I’d woken up from that dream at all.” He said these things to drive him crazy, Baze was sure of it.

Bells above them marked the midnight patrol change, and they held each other, Chirrut’s breathing slowing as he stretched himself across Baze’s lap.

“Mm. But yes, I’m yours to do with what you will. I only ask that if you do manage to spend inside me that you leave it there,” he smirked at the sound of Baze sputtering. “Makes it easier for you to take me again in the morning, when I’m awake for it.”

“You’ll be the death of me,” choked Baze, pressing a hand to his forehead, painless for once. Shameless didn’t even begin to describe it. Thrumming want was shivering through his hips, and he realised he was probably poking Chirrut in the back.

“Maybe not quite that far. You’re so dramatic.” He spoke over Baze’s disbelief, “Let’s start with being the sleep of you, _hah_ , if all goes well.”

Baze frowned. “What do you think might not go well? I’d never hurt you. I’d never do anything you didn’t want.” Chirrut stroked at his arm, soothing.

“I know, my love. Worst case scenario, you wake me up.”

“Oh really, that would be so terrible? Waking up to me giving you—for me to be, us—” he faltered, still unable to put too many words to it.

“Don’t strain anything, sweetness. I married the gentlest boy on Jedha, so I know how difficult it was for you to ask me for this. I don’t know _why_ , since you’re mine and I’m yours, body and soul, in sickness and in health, beyond! Into eternity!” Chirrut waved a dramatic hand along with his aggrandising voice he usually reserved for lecturing his acolytes about the Force. Baze laughed as he caught it before it cupped his face. Chirrut stroked a finger down the bridge of his nose anyway.

“Given all that, I think it’s fair to say I’m yours in sleep as well. Any way you want me. Though I’m sorry if I kick you halfway through, sometimes I have such energetic dreams of being ravished by shy and handsome men—”

Baze interrupted him. “Did you know you talk more when you’re really tired?”

Chirrut smiled, his eyelids starting to droop. “Only because I’m trying to keep myself awake, to spend more time with you. I know you don’t like… losing me to it. I try to stay but I want you to follow me. Find me in it...” He was drifting, his body being pulled down into Baze’s arms by the weight of dreams clamouring for his attention. With a pang he watched as Chirrut grew boneless, his eyes slipping shut and his hand going limp in Baze’s. It reminded him of something.

Starlight trickled through their window and split, the lone crystal’s slow rotation creating constellations above their bed. Chirrut’s face was in turns soft and angular, shadows flitting across his slightly parted mouth as if he were dozing by a sunny riverbank. Baze shifted him slowly from his numb legs to splay on the other side of the bedroll, quietly exhilarated by the new way he could appreciate this. Explicit permission made it less urgent, allowed to wander the gallery of Chirrut’s angles and curves instead of sneaking glances through the windows. _Allowed to touch the art,_ Baze thought, amused at what Chirrut would say if Baze ever said such flowery things to him.

The damn undershirt was riding loosely further up Chirrut’s torso, and Baze drew a deep breath against his warm shoulder. Slowly, gauging how forthright he could be without disturbing anything, he slipped his hand up the front of Chirrut’s shirt to rub at his chest. Listened for any change in breathing and finding none, he kissed Chirrut softly on the forehead before moving further down the bed, down the long lines of his sleep-heavy body.

Spread out for him like this, Baze would prostrate himself a thousand times at Chirrut’s feet if it meant being allowed to love him. Chirrut would haul him up and kiss him hard, call him a fool for it.

He moved slowly in everything he did, knowing how he hated being woken up, himself. He was heavier than Chirrut, though not by much, and he didn’t want to crush him in his sleep. Straddled over Chirrut’s waist he let his hands sweep over hard ribs, defined chest muscle. Chirrut was taut with it, even at rest, and though he had never seen himself he knew the effect his body had on people. Predominantly Baze. Again, shameless. Baze thumbed firmly over both of Chirrut’s dark nipples at once, peaked in the breeze they could never quite banish from the room.

Chirrut moaned softly, and Baze froze, eyes locked on his face.

Eyes still closed, Chirrut’s head lolled against the pillow with a tiny snore. Still asleep. Baze grinned and ducked his head to lave his tongue against one nipple, winding the flimsy shirt in his hands. He sucked slowly, enjoying how Chirrut’s even breathing hitched on one breath, two, and licked his way across the smooth chest, over a ropy scar to bite at the other. Gentle, so gentle.

With a jolt deep in his gut, he felt Chirrut hardening under his hips. He bit one last time at the mark he had sucked into the golden muscle of Chirrut’s chest and looked down between their bodies. His own head was peeking from the band of his soft pants, leaking a puddle steadily onto Chirrut’s stomach, but the firm press against the cleft of his ass was far more interesting. Levering himself further down the bed, he petted through the few soft hairs on Chirrut’s stomach, groped at his lean hips and pressed his face there to lick up his own pre-come.

Chirrut wasn’t fully hard yet, and Baze took a moment to appreciate the sight. They were both intact, Jedhan tradition being what it was, but Baze had seen others in the freshers and the fountains who looked different. In their fumbling beginnings he had been so thankful Chirrut’s cock wasn’t any different from his own, except in size. Chirrut never complained about Baze’s size anyway, quite the opposite. He loved to blame it in his laughing defense of the racket he made in bed.

Sparing a thought for the boy from years ago, exhausted and sucking his thumb and dizzy with love he couldn’t understand, Baze drew the tip of Chirrut’s cock into his mouth. Keeping an eye on any reaction, a brief twitch of his fingers, Baze hummed around him, loving the weight and musk on his tongue. Chirrut had bathed before he came to bed as he always did, smelling of clean sweat and warm spice. Slurping loud in the night’s silence, Baze pulled away and mouthed at the crease of hip before him, slowly jerking Chirrut to lie hard and flush against his belly.

Ever since those first few terrifying months of new attraction, of feeling tight in his skin whenever they were in the same room, Baze had loved Chirrut’s legs. Elegant and deadly when he spun a flying kick at his opponent’s neck, Baze loved the softness of his inner thighs, the bulge of his strong quads, the light dusting of dark hair on his shins. Mindful of Chirrut’s hips, now undulating minutely under his hands, he drew those beloved legs over his shoulders and buried his face between them, breathing deep.

Chirrut’s hand flopped into his hair as he sighed in his sleep, groaning the barest whimper between his mellow snores. Baze smiled what he knew was his softest, most indulgent smile, the one reserved for only the utmost privacy, and licked a broad stripe up the underside of Chirrut’s cock.

“Nnn. Ah,” breathed above him, and he stopped short again, but there was no waking tension to Chirrut’s body.

He pulled those slack legs further around his shoulders, kissing wetly at Chirrut’s thighs, his balls, the tip of his velvety cock. Hooking his arms underneath, he hauled Chirrut a little towards him, sliding his lithe hips up to meet Baze’s mouth.

Long minutes passed for him there in the dark that way, working his mouth unhurried over Chirrut’s hot length, paying no mind to his own straining need. This was what he needed. Slow repetitive motion to focus his mind on, and if it involved pleasuring the man he adored, well that was just a wonderful added bonus. The only sounds that reached them this late, this high in the Temple were the lonely winds. Occasionally a ship would cruise past and swarm their room with light for a moment, heading for the city’s spaceport. Chirrut was still pliant, limbs heavy like plant stems laden with bloom. Drawing off every few moments to pant at his lower stomach, Baze was glad he’d thought to tie his hair back hours ago. He was sweating, stray locks sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck damp where Chirrut’s knees rested. He couldn’t stop kissing, mouthing at every inch of satiny skin he could reach, his cock aching and wet in his trousers from neglect. Still he sucked, running his hands all over Chirrut’s chest, up under the thin shirt now damp and see-through with night sweat too.

He didn’t know how Chirrut could sleep so soundly or so deep. There had been times not plagued with insomnia when he had awoken to Chirrut bent between his legs, but he was always startled awake by the first touch of lips. Here he was lavishing his husband with attention, and he wasn’t even conscious. Baze smiled around his mouthful, thinking of the next day when he would go among his friends, his work, with the sacred knowledge of Chirrut trusting him so completely. No one else, just Baze.

Chirrut’s cock was thick and twitching on his tongue now, his foreskin drawn back and throbbing against Baze’s swollen mouth. He pulled off and rolled Chirrut’s balls in one hand, drawn up tight to his body and looked. His mouth would have gone dry had it not been sloppy with spit and pre-come.

A deep red glow had worked its way down Chirrut’s body from his face, his shining face, still loose in slumber but for his eyebrows, furrowed and handsome. The angle Baze was holding his hips up had arched Chirrut’s supple spine, his abs distinct in NaJedha’s kaleidoscopic light. Baze felt nearly overcome with feeling, stroked faster and rested his forehead against Chirrut’s belly.

“I love you so much,” he whispered, and smothered the choke in his voice by suckling the flushed head of Chirrut’s cock back into his mouth, just as it spurted heavy against the back of his throat. He swallowed most of it, and petted his hands rough down Chirrut’s flanks, eased the weak thrusting of his hips.

Still Chirrut slept on, the only sign of his release the deeper heave of his chest and the few streaks Baze had missed, caught in his wiry pubic hair. Baze was too busy breathing hard and gazing up Chirrut’s body to notice his stirring, and squawked when Chirrut shifted suddenly in his sleep, pushing onto his front. Baze’s head was still caught between his thighs and he struggled, trying not to laugh and wake his comatose husband. Awkward until the last.

There was yet more for him to work over, this way, but his own need was quickly catching up to him. For once he wasn’t eager to fall asleep just yet, and settled back down between the sprawl of Chirrut’s legs.

It was a shame, he thought, that Chirrut didn’t wear tighter pants to practice. Not that he didn’t flaunt himself with what he already wore, but a snarling part of Baze wanted people to _see_ , and know they couldn’t touch. He moved slowly to his knees, pulling his own leggings off. Chirrut’s ass was _stupendous._ His back muscles could raze _armies,_ of that Baze had no doubt. He lay back down, licking unconsciously at his bottom lip, and tilted Chirrut’s hips up slightly to look.

What to do. His own balls were swinging heavy and tight with tension, but he wanted to do this, he loved to do this. To press in and kiss intimately right at Chirrut’s core, and he knew Chirrut loved it even more than him. He parted the cleft of Chirrut’s ass with his thumbs and—

“Baze...”

He stopped, his mouth open and panting against Chirrut’s entrance, and waited. After long moments the quiet snoring resumed and he grinned, biting lightly at the firm swell of muscle, gripping the back of Chirrut’s thighs. In their youth it had been torture, listening intently to Chirrut’s tiny moans and bitten-off words as he himself feigned sleep, trembling and nearly coming untouched from the slick sounds. It wasn’t until one night, in the darkest hour before dawn that Chirrut began, so sure he was unheard. Baze had tried not to listen, terrified of hearing something he didn’t want to, when he heard the thing he wanted the most.

 _“Baze_ —”

With one gasping word Chirrut had changed him forever, and since then he had heard his name in every conceivable way from the other’s lips. Now he knew what it sounded like when Chirrut was sleeping, and Baze was determinedly eating him out.

He took a deep breath through his nose, working his tongue firm against the ring of muscle. Chirrut was already relaxed from sleep, so it was easy to push in and kiss him there, a filthy imitation of what they shared with their mouths. He dragged his hands down Chirrut’s thighs, gripped handfuls of his ass and thumbed the delicious dimples in his lower back. Dimly he realised he was thrusting his own cock mindless against the bedroll, against Chirrut’s leg. He hadn’t even noticed, too focused on working over Chirrut, on _doing things_ to Chirrut. He came up for air with his chin and cheeks wet and slippery, his short beard rubbing the delicate skin pink.

Chirrut was grasping soft at his pillow with no rhythm, his head turned to the side and a puddle of drool collecting already. Suddenly Baze needed very desperately to come even as he rolled his eyes, because Chirrut was so beautiful it hurt to look at him sometimes.

With one last, long swipe of his tongue from Chirrut’s balls right up to his hole, Baze pressed a firm, closed mouthed kiss to each cheek and sat up, straddling wide over Chirrut’s ass. He took his own cock in hand and his hips bucked, he was already so close. Biting down hard on any noise, he leaned over Chirrut’s unmoving back to mouth at his shoulder, even as he slipped his cock up, and between.

He was already slick enough with pre-come, even without his own spit gliding the way, but it still choked the breath from him when the fat head of his cock caught and dragged on Chirrut’s rim. He wouldn’t push inside, regardless of what Chirrut had said. Despite what people thought of him, despite his own pious nature, he wasn’t so modest as to think the man would stay asleep through _that._

There was no finesse to his thrusting any more, he just wanted Chirrut, he just wanted to come for Chirrut. He ducked his head, his broad shoulders bunching as the sheer power of it ripped through him and he managed to stifle his shout, just barely. Chirrut’s hand was still curled limp beside him and Baze grasped for it with his eyes screwed shut, holding on through the shattering aftershocks.

All at once he felt very, very tired.

Thinking dazedly back to what Chirrut had said before he drifted off, Baze laughed a breathless laugh and smeared the pools of come into the accursed dimples, down between Chirrut’s legs to push into his loose entrance. Hopefully Baze would get enough sleep to take him up on his offer. He swiped his clean hand over his sweaty forehead, pushed his hair back and looked around. Their room was lit a deep red; they were passing through the xenon field of NaJedha’s gaseous rings, and at that precise moment the deep bells rang in the main spire again, signalling the next patrol shift.

Baze sighed, content. His thighs were quivering from the force of his orgasm and from being crouched for so long, but he lowered himself down next to Chirrut as slowly as he could. Nose to nose, he could barely pick out the details of Chirrut’s face, bathed as it was in smothering red light. It didn’t matter, he knew them all by heart. He reached to smooth the crease between those well-loved eyebrows before tugging the twisted blanket over them both, tucking himself into Chirrut’s sweltering side. Finally, finally, he fell asleep.

 

~

 

The dream was different, if it was even the same dream at all. Baze knew they were, the way things are communicated silently sometimes, with touch, with an echo-box, with love. The burning beach was gone and the terror was gone, only desperate hope in its place, surrounding him and reflecting him like the glittering kyber caves in the stories.

“Baze?” said Chirrut. Brown eyes saw him for the very first time, and filled with happy tears. “My Baze.”

“I found you,” said Baze, and they embraced forever behind the curtain of celestial night.

 

~

 

When Baze finally broke the surface of his dark still pool, the terrible circle forgotten, it was to the sounds of air traffic, to the rainbows in their room, and the sight of Chirrut already sinking down onto him with his teeth bared and his shirt soaked through.

That morning, Uqin barged in to shout at them and quickly retreated, still shouting with two hands over her eyes and the other two _gesturing._ All they could do was clutch each other and fall apart, laughing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Learning Experience](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10389696) by [Pretentious_Procrastinator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretentious_Procrastinator/pseuds/Pretentious_Procrastinator)




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